To Bella, With Love
by Bella.Diggory
Summary: This is the letter that Edward wrote to Bella after she had drowned from jumping into the water. Very short, sweet, romantic and tragic. NM, Edward POV


**To Bella, With Love**

One-Shot

_I guess I don't really know how to start this, so I'll just pretend I'm in the middle, because once you're in the middle you can't really go back to the beginning, because it is already too late. But then, I suppose I am already in the middle. Because the beginning was when I realized I loved you, and the end of the beginning was when I told you. The middle was… When I left. The middle was when you jumped off that cliff, and the middle was when you drowned. And the middle was when you died._

_The ending… It will be when I can see you again. Be it in the next life, or five lives from now._

_I know I told you that I didn't love you anymore, that I didn't want you anymore, and that I was tired of playing a game of ever pretending to love you in the first place. But I meant none of it. I love you, and I never want you to think otherwise._

_Before you Bella, there was nothing for me. I went by, day by day, watching Carlisle and Esme, Jasper and Alice, Emmett and Rosalie. I watched them just loving each other, hearing their thoughts, hearing them and seeing them love one another. And I had no one. And I didn't care. The loneliness didn't bother me so much._

_From 1901, the year I was born, to 1918, when I was I guess you could say born again, to 2004, the year before I met you, I was alone. I never thought I would find love, not real love anyway. And honestly, I didn't really care for it. All I ever wanted when I was a boy was to fight and be a solider in the war. I wanted to come home and marry the first woman who gave me a second glance, regardless of anything. I guess it is safe to say I wanted the simple life, I didn't want anything complicated or arranged, I just wanted to be done with it all. _

_But then I met you, and all of that changed._

_I realized that all of those years I had just been lying to myself, and that, in fact, I did want love. I did want the happy ending that you only hear about or see about or read about in films and books and plays and songs and poems. But I didn't just want them to have them; I wanted them because I wanted them with you. I wanted to have that happy ending with you. Whether it come in a hundred years or a hundred-thousand years or a hundred-thousand-million years, I wanted it with you. _

_I can never bring myself to believe that what happened to you was an accident, like everyone tells me it was. I know there was a hurricane that day, that there was bad weather that day. But you would have never jumped had I never lied to you and left you in the first place. So, I believe it is safe to say that what happened to you is my fault. And for the rest of my (now) meaningless existence I have to live with that on my shoulders. I have to walk around with the guilt of knowing that I caused the woman who I loved, the woman who I still love and will always love, to take her own life. _

_Winston Churchill once said, "If you are going through hell, keep going." And that is exactly what I am doing. I am going through hell, this endless hell. Because life without you is hell. _

_I tell myself to stop being so dramatic. But the truth is… I couldn't be being more realistic. _

_When I close my eyes I see you looking at me in those woods, with broken, dull, hurt eyes, begging me to stay. And I hear my voice lying to you, telling you there is nothing you can do because I don't love you and don't want you. I hear my heart screaming at me to stop it, to step towards you and wrap you in my arms and tell you that I love you and that I never want to live a day without seeing you face or hearing your voice or feeling you in my arms…_

_But then I open my eyes, and you are gone. You are dead. And it is my entire fault. And there is nothing I can do about it but mourn and hurt and cry tearlessly. _

_The memory of you is all I have left to hold onto, and I know it is selfish to cling to something and let it make me so happy, when I am in the first place the reason why it is gone. The reason why you are gone. _

_I know that vampires can't sleep; but where along those lines does it say we can't dream? Because to this day I still sneak into your room through your window and pull your old pillows to my chest and close my eyes and pretend it is you. I dream it is you. I see you in my mind, I hear you and smell you and feel you, and in my dreams I never let go._

_And I never will. _

THE END


End file.
